At a 2013 event, Fred Divel, co-founder of the San Clemente Historical Society, revels in memories of early residents of the town that entrepreneu Ole Hanson founded in 1925. (File photo by Fred Swegles, Orange County Register/SCNG)

At a 2010 event at Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens, Fred Divel relates the story of bringing President Nixon and Mrs. Nixon, pictured, to San Clemente. (File photo by Fred Swegles, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Pillars of the San Clemente Historical Society were seated next to each other at a 2013 party for the organization’s 40th anniversary. From left were Lois Divel, Elberta Ayer, Jack Lashbrook, Fred Divel, Norm Haven, Doris Rinehart and Betty Jo Cates. (File photo by Fred Swegles, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Fred Divel, who campaigned for more than a decade to revive San Clemente’s Miramar Theatre, sat beside Jim Doody’s painting of the landmark at an event in 2015. On the painting, the marquee says “Help!” (File photo by Fred Swegles, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Fred Divel will be remembered for two distinctions in San Clemente — he was the local resident who attracted former President Richard Nixon to San Clemente, and he co-founded the San Clemente Historical Society.

The two events are related.

Divel, who died of cancer Wednesday, Feb. 21, at 68, liked to say that there were upsides and downsides to the president of the United States putting San Clemente on the world map in 1969.

Divel, then a college student, had volunteered in Nixon’s successful 1968 run for president. Nixon aides asked him to scout locations for a Southern California summer home for Dick and Pat Nixon.

The lifelong San Clemente resident discovered that a palatial early San Clemente home was available on a secluded oceanfront promontory at the south end of town. The Nixons purchased it in 1969.

What Divel didn’t realize was that land developers, seeking to cash in on the Orange County beach town’s newfound fame as “Home of the Western White House,” would start buying up all the best sites for ocean bluff condominiums.

Many of those sites were locations that San Clemente’s first residents had selected in the 1920s to build elegant oceanfront Spanish-motif homes.

By 1972, Fred Divel and his mother Lois – today San Clemente’s matriarch – had seen one too many demolitions of landmark homes.

Creating the San Clemente Historical Society, they set out to awaken the town, preserve its heritage, document legacy buildings and prompt the city to enact preservation programs.

Their campaign succeeded. Although the town has grown from 13,000 residents to 65,000 since the Nixon arrival, the society helped preserve San Clemente’s historic core. Once-threatened landmark buildings survive. Casa Romantica is a cultural center. The Miramar Theatre is city-approved for a renaissance as an events center.

Looking back, Divel said it is likely that demolition of landmarks to build high-density condominiums would have come anyway, even if the president hadn’t moved to town. “I just saw that as the ruination of my hometown,” he said in an interview. “At the time, I was still taking bows for having brought him here.”

Divel, senior class president at San Clemente High School in 1967, grew up a member of a family that had come to town in 1927, two years after visionary developer Ole Hanson had founded what he called his “Spanish Village.” Every San Clemente building, by decree, would be white stucco with a red-tile roof. Streets would curve with the contours of the land.

Divel’s sister Jane Divel Nichols, in a Facebook post announcing her brother’s passing, described aspects of the community preservationist that most San Clemente residents likely didn’t know.

“He worked for Disneyland, Disney World, WED Enterprises and several cruise lines as special event coordinator, which took him around the world many times,” she wrote. “He was an actor and model. He was a kind, patient gentleman. I never heard a swear word from him. I am still truly disbelieving that this handsome, kind, sweet, generous, witty, king of puns, lovable fella is no longer with us.”

He is survived by his 89-year-old mother, Lois Divel of San Clemente; his sister Martha Divel Sanchez of San Clemente; sister Jane Divel Nichols of San Luis Obispo; and brother Tommy of San Clemente. No services are planned, per his wishes.

Fred Swegles grew up in small-town San Clemente before the freeway. He has covered the town since 1970. Today he covers San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano. He was in the second graduating class at San Clemente High School, after having spent the first two years of high school in double sessions at historic Capistrano Union High School in San Juan. When the new high school opened, he became first sports editor of the school paper, The Triton. He studied journalism and Spanish at USC on scholarship, graduating with honors. Was sports editor of the Daily Trojan. Surfed on the USC surf team. (High school surfing didn't exist back then.) With the Sun Post, he began covering competitive surfing from the mid-1970s, with the birth of the the modern world tour and the origins of high school surf teams. He got into surf photography and into world travel. Has surfed on six continents (not Antarctica). Has visited 11 San Clementes. Has written photo-illustrated profiles on most of them, with more in the works.

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